Bread and Milk and Hot Sauce
by Maverick87
Summary: Fox McCloud goes grocery shopping.


So I guess there's the idea of being barely thirty, that everyone you ever really know or love will leave you with the chance to say goodbye. I feel like this was something that someone told me in a moment of reflection, probably forgetting I was there to hear them say it.

I was going to pick some items from the grocery store. One of those simple trips where I only buy three things desperately needed to keep the house afloat. Stuff like paper towels, or toilet paper, or plastic forks. I needed bread and milk.

Get to the store in my sports car. Pop my legs out of the chambers. It's one of those days where it's only hot if I move too much. The automatic doors open and there's a little video camera screen about ten feet from walking in, and I see me, and I give myself a nonverbal hello, because I am not on camera enough anymore to remember what it is like.

I go to the left side of the store where all the dry items are. The bakery section is full of bread and a few pastries and the part of me that hates my teeth, wants to get some glazed donuts. I just get a loaf of wheat bread. I squeeze it first to check if it is soft and fresh. Heading all the way towards the back toward the dairy area I find the milk. Every time I get back there to see it I remember that the cows got fair wages finally. I pick the whole milk and check for the latest expiration date because I want the most time I can get to drink it. Decide to go to the self checkout, easy enough with two items.

Pass by the chips and I debate buying hot sauce, but I know not to go the chip aisle because all they have is that one chunky tomato brand for parties. It's not practical for someone like me who uses hot sauce on everything minus desserts. Of course my father was the original criminal of this practice. Every night, mom's casserole or butter beans were doused in "Corporal Buttrand's Bombshell Sauce", which had a heat level of five dead monkey heads. He would just pant and lightly cough the rest of the night and its rhythm was a decent enough sleep machine, unless he had the television on real loud, then I would just imagine it.

Whip myself into the aisle staring down towards the middle where the hot sauce is, I was thinking of a certain one when I notice Wolf. He throws his bottle into his handbasket. Turns, looks up at me and now we're doing that animal dance of awkwardness. The old ways never die. I walk over to get the one I want and I go to say something like "hey Wolf", but it comes out experimentally louder like "HEY WAWLF!" and then the look on his face goes from smug to indomitable.

"Hey Fox! Looks like we meet again...whatcha buying?"

"Yeah...you know the same old same old." I pulled a different bottle off the shelf. "I really like the South Corneria stuff. You know it's got that real vinegar like feel to it? Like it's hot enough to just keep wanting more?"

Wolf kind of does this flicker with his eyes that stares at something else before coming back to me.

"That's missing the whole fucking point of hot sauce."

"Like how?"

"It's not even hot. You just want something you don't have to think about. Typical vanilla bullshit. I mean I guess I am not surprise-"

"Like what the hell are you buying then?"

"Corpor-"

"Bombshell right?"

"UH no." Wolf yanked his bottle back out and waved in front of my face. "This is Drone Bomb! Six monkeys! It fucking takes hours of time for it to leave." Wolf pulled his eye patch up to show the canyon where is former eye used to be. "I can even see out of both eyes with this shit."

"Oh come on..."

"You over there with your weaksauce are just fucking jealous."

"You can't even taste anything using that! What's the point of adding it to anything if the flavor doesn't last? You know you're full of shit."

Wolf pops the cap off the Drone Bomb and takes a swig. Who dares wins. He coughs once. Tears are barely glassing over his eyes.

"Not. Any. More. Fox."

I stare Wolf down, and his tongue now is flopping out. I want to pretend he is turning red.

I put my bread and milk on the ground. Open the mid-sized bottle of South Corneria with my teeth and start chugging it. It goes down gulp by gulp like I am slowly grilling my esophagus and stomach over a slow spit. But I know this game and I have to one up the both of us. Glug glug glug, I throw the bottle against the tile floor and it rings out, but doesn't break. I am trying to pretend I am back on Ice Mountain remembering what hypothermia feels like.

But I know what I am supposed to do.

I put my paw out towards Wolf and he just hands me the Drone Bomb, and I start doing it again with his. Chug chug chug, and he's still panting, I am keeping one eye open on him as I do it, like this eternal crying wink that he has to look at. I want him to remember this face of mine when he dies. He's going to always remember me for this moment. Not the air battles where we tried to kill each other, but in a grocery store hot sauce aisle, because if that is the hill of liquid fire and irritated ulcers I die on, so be it.

I finish the mid-sized bottle off and toss it back to him. He catches it.

"What the fuck is your problem? I mean holy shit."

I take a second to focus on whatever is left of my breathing. I burp a little. The gas is a charcoal briquette in my neck.

"Youknowwhatthefuckingproblemis?!"

Like a switch is flipped, I start vomiting, like not even in the good sense of getting everything out in a few heaves. This is more like a broken faucet trying to push out whatever little water it can.

bleagh ble bl-bleaghhh

I learn after a few heaves that Wolf is a very sensitive person around vomit, so we, for a brief moment, are in unison.

I regain my composure to pick up the milk. It feels like the coldest thing in the universe. I rip the cap off and start taking light sips and begin walking away. I leave the bread behind and I leave the mess behind, and if I am lucky, I am probably banned from that particular store now. Some older photo of me hanging in the manager's office, but I am sure Wolf's will be next to mine.


End file.
